R

In honor of his 6th birthday I thought I'd do a Ryan post. It's so hard to choose a select few pictures out of the hundreds or thousands that we have of him. So, these are kind of random. I probably have better ones somewhere but I've been looking at pictures for over an hour (don't you guys love doing that?) and I'd better post this before he turns 7.

Here he is at about 4 months old in his blessing outfit. Back then we thought he'd keep his grey-blue eyes (Rich's eye color). His eyes didn't turn brown until he was over a year old! This is also proof that I can make chubby babies:)

After I graduated from BYU, I worked there full time. My kind boss let me bring him to work with me. Here we are in my office. This boy was spoiled by all the professors and staff in my department.

Here's a recent photo of him.

He's SO into Santa and Christmas this year. He totally believes. He constantly talks about whether he's on the nice list or naughty list. In case you're wondering, Macie absolutely refused to sit on Santa's lap. She's on the naughty list:)

Here he is on the morning of his 6th birthday. I gave him a donut "cake". He loves donuts and always asks for them when we pass the donut shop.

As most of you know, my kids all have some crazy daredevil climbing gene. This is Ryan at 11 months old climbing in our closet. He had probably started doing this a month earlier. We kept trying to discourage him from climbing and finally just let him do it and figured we might as well take a picture. This was the start to a long climbing career which continues to this day.

Here he is at 14 months old when he was hospitalized for a week with Rotavirus and a Clostridium difficile infection. As you can see, he was already a determined little boy who refused to let go of his balloon even when asleep and with a splint and IV strapped to his arm. This was one of the most stressful and emotional weeks of our lives. I still get teary eyed when I look at the pictures.

He lost a lot of weight during this time. He was put on a strict, extremely high calorie diet. He ate a lot of Haagan Daz:)

Here he is a few months later at Cuesta Park. Look at how nicely I used to dress him! Gap shirt. . .K Swiss shoes. . .oh how time and budgets have changed:)

Look at the goose egg on this boy's head! He crawled at 6 months and cruised at 6 1/2 months and walked at 11 months. I'm not exaggerating when I say that he never sat down. He never sat on our laps, never sat on the floor, never. 100% Go. And he got plenty of ouchies along the way.

Obviously, these pictures aren't in order. He had a bad case of jaundice when he was born and so they sent home a little tanning booth and these silly eye covers. He really loved the tanning booth.

Here he is the day he was born. I can't believe how our lives have changed. He's loving, bright, compassionate, social, confident, funny and an all around good kid. I love, love, love that he'll still climb on my lap to cuddle and chat and tell me how much he loves me and that I'm a genius and how he will never get married because he doesn't want to leave me or Rich. There's a little part of me that wants that, too.

Puppy Love

Bailey has been a fun addition to the family. We didn't expect a puppy to be more work than a baby. The most exciting thing has been watching the kids play with her. Juliet has certainly enjoyed having the puppy around and has graciously shared her most prized possession, as you can see.

Juliet showing Bailey her favorite stuffed doggy.

Juliet giving Bailey a turn.

Bailey enjoying the fruits of true friendship.

This post is like a box of chocolates

Life has been fun lately, here's some of what's gone on. We got a pup and named her Bailey. Her arrival has been much anticipated. She's a schnoodle (half schnauzer, half poodle) and is SUPPOSED to be more hypoallergenic, though I am still mildly allergic to her. However, with a major haircut, expensive anti-allergy shampoo and me showing most affection with my distant toes the allergies have been minimal. So far she's wonderful--NOT a yapper, self confident, friendly, and potty training has been going well. The kids love her, but I must admit Rich adores her the most. It's been funny seeing how much attention he gives her. But, I'm glad because I can't give her as much as I'd like, seeing as she gives my eyes and nose the tickles.

pre haircut (looks a little more poodle-ish

post haircut--looks a little more schnauzer-ish

Ryan started Kindergarten. We were all excited. I LOVE this boy. He's very affectionate and loving and grateful. But. . .he very much struggles to self-entertain and he's always at my heels seeking attention, entertainment, helping opportunities, learning opportunities, or food. I was so ready for him to start school in order to fill his hunger for friends, teachers and learning!

I wanted to surprise him for his first day of school and found him this awesome Pottery Barn Kids Star Wars backpack for $1.50 at the D.I. I also got him a matching folder and lunch bag. Did I mention he's obsessed with Star Wars? He is. We loaded up the backpack and set everything outside his door to surprise him in the morning. I'm not sure who was happier--me finding such an awesome deal or him getting his dream backpack.

Getting ready to ride his scooter to his first day of school. Sadly, the joy has diminished and he's been getting a bad case of the nerves. In preschool he was a big fish in a little pond (7 kids in his class) and now he's a little fish in a big pond (21 kids in his class). He hates it because "it's ALL different." We're working on strategies to help him feel comfortable and excited again.

Our garden has been busting at the seams with goodies. Ryan found this giant ear of corn. When he opened it, there was 3 cobs inside. We thought it was pretty cool.

We only have one zucchini plant and cannot eat the zucchinis fast enough. We've had several of these wonders grow lately. They've been great to surprise friends with. . .consider yourself warned.

My mom and I took the kids to the circus. I hadn't been since I was a kid and it was actually pretty fun for me. Ryan loved it and Macie thought it was o.k. My mom slept through parts. I guess she's been to enough circuses.

We took the kids to "the shelliest beach in Northern California"--Stinson beach. We've been planning to take this trip for probably 2 years but it's so hard to drive an hour and a half to the beach when we have ones that are only 45 minutes away. It was lame. L-A-M-E. Not one shell. And then we found out that the shelly areas are within gated beach communities and so we wouldn't have access anyway. To top it off it was supposed to be almost 80 that day. We arrived at 1 pm and it was a cold 60. We tried to find any store that sold sweatshirts for kids and only found one random lame store that only had one thing that would fit Macie--this Pepto Pink dress for $3. But, she was whiny and we were desperate.

Ryan got his first "real" haircut. I wanted him to look sharp for his first day of school. He wanted spikes so my haircutting friend, Lindsey, obliged. He and the spikes look great.

Recently, Ryan really wanted to sleep on the hardwood floors. Don't ask us why, we thought he was crazy. Then Macie wanted to join him. But, you know how there are times when it's ok to let a kid do what they want so they can learn a lesson on their own? This was one of those times. To our surprise they slept like this for 3 nights! Then they learned their lesson and started sleeping in their beds again. Let's hope they're not such slow learners in other areas of life.

Summatime

Ok, it's been a long time since I've blogged. Our hard drive crashed and it's taken me a while to get our photos back in order. Here's some of our summertime fun. . .

We've been enjoying our house. I love that I can tell the kids to go jump in the pool or run in the sprinklers or go on a bug hunt or pick a squash. It's awesome.

We went camping with our friends, the Lims. It was crazy how much we packed for an overnighter. But well worth the work.

We were excited to take the kids paddle boating. However, once we realized that there were no seat belts or even sides to the back of the paddle boats we got a little nervous.

All of a sudden, Ryan's protective brother instincts kicked in and he told Macie that she had to hold his hand the whole time and she couldn't go near the edge of the boat. I'm not kidding, the kids were absolutely perfect the whole time. It was a brief dream come true:).

Happy us.

While we were hanging out at the campground Ryan disappeared. We looked around and found him playing baseball with another family. This kid is such a social butterfly. He had totally introduced himself and started playing all on his own. I'm sure that by the 2nd day of school this boy will have 30 new friends.

On the way home, we stopped by Baskin Robbins. Rich bought each kid a "small" shake. But, you can see that a small is really not that small. Besides eating it, Macie decided to wear it. It took a big scrub and wash to get that car seat clean. And seriously, we've never been more grateful for leather seats. Camping with the Lims went so well that we've decided we're up to more camping trips and vacations in general (I think traveling with 3 kids intimidated us for a while). That leads me to our next trip. . .Utah.

We visited Utah so that we could go to my cousin's wedding and a family reunion. We had so much fun. It was such a treat to watch my cousin get married in the Timpanogos Temple--the one we got hitched in, too. We had to relive the moment:).

Rich got to go 4 wheeling with all the men in the family. There was a lot of testosterone and dirt flying around that day.

We visited the Y. It's been over 4 years since we've been. We had loads of fun eating creamery ice cream, visiting the Bean Museum, visiting my old office and boss, visiting Rich's old home (the Tanner Building), and walking around with oodles of EFYers.

We hung out in SLC with Rich's brother, Keith. Our kids love Uncle Keith.

Our little forever family.

We stayed part of the time at my cousin's house in Heber. They had giant dandelions around their house. The kids loved blowing them. Here's Rich teaching Macie how to blow.

I wanted Ryan to see where he was born so we swung by the hospital for a little photo op.

We rode the Alpine slide, zipline, and coaster in Park City. SO MUCH FUN. This will probably become a tradition for us every time we visit. I'm not kidding people the Alpine coaster was probably one of the best coasters I've been on. And I've been on quite a few.

I had dinner with roommies from my sophomore year in college. We had a blast and yummy food.

This was probably one of the best trips ever to Utah. We really made it a point to do tons of fun things in addition to visiting family. We went to Lagoon, visited our friends the Chases, went shopping, went to all our old favorite restaurants, played games. It was the best. Ok, back from Utah. . .

So, we have a mulberry tree and a lot of mulberries. Our freezer is half full of them. Picking, cleaning and freezing them has consumed a lot of our time lately.

Here's what they look like. They're delicious, too. Did I mention we have thousands? Thousands. We've been giving them away but there seems to be a never ending supply.

I found these two gorging themselves on mulberries after church.

We've gone through a lot of stain remover lately.

Finally, our garden is huge. The corn is huge, the zucchini is huge, and the lettuce is huge. We love it. We've been eating veggies galore. I'd post a picture but the ones I took are now outdated and it's too dark to take any now. But maybe tomorrow. . .

Goose egg

The other day Juliet got her first goose egg. It got us to talking about goose eggs and each kid's first one. It's funny how well we each remember these mini-traumatic events. . .

Juliet was cruising around the table and chairs and fell onto a foot of the table. The bump landed right between her eyes. It's actually not too ugly and the swelling has gone pretty fast.

Ryan's goose egg was big and came at a very inconvenient time (gawsh Ryan). I was trying to get some cute photos of him so I could update the pictures on our wall. He was running down a hill and face planted on the sidewalk. We still remember the sound of it.

Macie's was the worst. THE WORST! She had just gotten her cast on the day before. She was on the verge of walking independently and the cast messed up her balance. While Rich was making dinner she opened a cupboard door and fell right into the shelf. It looked awful. AWFUL! He rushed her to the hospital because we were worried her nose was broken but everything ended up being fine. But I'm pretty sure that we looked like the worst parents ever.

p.s. she's eating a plum not an organ

I hate watching videos on peoples' blogs

They just take too long to load on my computer. And by too long I mean like 5 seconds is too long.

But sometimes they're just fun to watch:).

New pad

Hooray for us, we finally found and moved into a rental house. Non-Silicon Valley readers are probably thinking, "big whoop, they found a rental house." But. . .the cost of living here is insane and with 3 kids and 1 income it's a big deal for us! Finding a house in our budget was a big challenge. Most of the houses we saw were total dumps. . .or too small. . .or in the ghetto. But a few months ago I saw a Craigslist ad about a house in our price range. There wasn't much detail--but what was there sounded too good to be true. I emailed the guy just in case. When he called back he said that the house was already rented out but that the neighboring house (that he also owned) would be vacated in March. The two houses were identical in layout except that the one that had just been rented out also had a laundry room/pantry. I asked to see that house so I could check out the layout and get a feel for how well he maintained things. The house was great. . .3 bed, two bath, living room and a Florida room. The condition was fine. Old house, little was updated, but it was in good shape. Then. . .he took us to the backyard of the house we'd try to rent. It was awesome. We were sold. We waited WEEKS and WEEKS for the renters to move out, the house to be cleaned, things to be repaired and finally this past weekend we moved in. We LOVE it. I think I didn't realize how much of my stress was due to our cramped living quarters. Here's the grand tour of the outside:

Here's our new palace. It needs help and luckily for us our landlord is very accommodating. We'll be re-installing shutters and removing those UGLY awnings. We have a sweet gardener (who lives down the street) and he'll be helping me spruce up the place. To the left of our van is an ugly dirt patch and he's installing sprinklers and putting new plants in. There are a couple of planter boxes under the windows that I'll put some cute flowers in, too. But, overall I think the yard is very decent.

Our street dead ends into this cul-de-sac. It's awesome. There's hardly any traffic and the kids LOVE riding their bikes around. And I can just sit on the lawn and holler when a car comes (though up to this point a car has never come while we've been out there:).

Here's the first backyard (yes, I said first). It's a pretty typical backyard for this area. Smallish but perfect for us. There are random pavers and flagstone everywhere. I have big plans for those. Our lawn is mostly weeds but, hey, they're green. There's also a cute lemon tree.

In the fence of the first backyard is a gate to. . .the SECOND backyard:).

In the second backyard is a mature mini-orchard with a plum tree, apricot tree, fig tree, peach tree, and mulberry tree. All of them are growing fruit right now except for the plum tree but hopefully that will start to bear fruit soon. As an added bonus our neighbor has a vineyard in his yard and bunches of grapes are growing over our fence. And. . .

there's a super creepy shed that hasn't been entered in 15 years. It's locked but you can see all kinds of junk (no bodies:) in there through the window. I think we might try to replace that bright blue tarp with a brown one.

Here are more random pavers and blocks. We want to make planter boxes and start a garden back here. I'll use the pavers and flagstone to create a path to and around the boxes.

That's it for the outside. We're pretty excited about the yards and will probably spending a LOT of time out there. I can't wait to try out the fruit. And if we get a lot I'll probably start canning, too. I'll post about the inside of the house soon.